Charles Dickens: A Tale of Two Cities

Book the Third - The Track of a Storm 13. XIII. Fifty-two (continued)

"No; I am not armed."

"What is it in your hand?"

"You shall know directly. Write on; there are but a few words more." He dictated again. "`I am thankful that the time has come, when I can prove them. That I do so is no subject for regret or grief.'" As he said these words with his eyes fixed on the writer, his hand slowly and softly moved down close to the writer's face.

The pen dropped from Darnay's fingers on the table, and he looked about him vacantly.

"What vapour is that?" he asked.

"Vapour?"

"Something that crossed me?"

"I am conscious of nothing; there can be nothing here. Take up the pen and finish. Hurry, hurry!"

As if his memory were impaired, or his faculties disordered, the prisoner made an effort to rally his attention. As he looked at Carton with clouded eyes and with an altered manner of breathing, Carton--his hand again in his breast--looked steadily at him.

"Hurry, hurry!"

The prisoner bent over the paper, once more.

"`If it had been otherwise;'" Carton's hand was again watchfully and softly stealing down; "`I never should have used the longer opportunity. If it had been otherwise;'" the hand was at the prisoner's face; "`I should but have had so much the more to answer for. If it had been otherwise--'" Carton looked at the pen and saw it was trailing off into unintelligible signs.

Carton's hand moved back to his breast no more. The prisoner sprang up with a reproachful look, but Carton's hand was close and firm at his nostrils, and Carton's left arm caught him round the waist. For a few seconds he faintly struggled with the man who had come to lay down his life for him; but, within a minute or so, he was stretched insensible on the ground.